Saturday, January 24, 2015

Marvel's April previews reviewed

According to Internet, it is a common acronym for "Win The Day," "Want The Dick?," "What The Deuce?" or "What The Duck?". As there is no question mark in the logo, "Win The Day" seems most likely, rather than one of the questions. Otherwise, "Want The Dick?" seems to be a pretty Marvel-ous thing to have on the cover of their comic books. That said, "What The Duck?" comes from the common mistake of typing a "D" when you want an "F" to text "WTF," so since this seems to be Marvel taking the piss out of DC, who announced and then went back on their plans for a "What The Fuck Certified" month, and a prominent Marvel character who is getting his own book is a "duck," then I guess that's quite possible.

But you'll notice a lot of the solicits for the books they plan to publish in April have credits for a "WTD Variant Cover," the best of these by artists who have yet to be determined, so they'll say "WTD Variant Cover by TBD." Have fun ordering your stock, comic shop owners!

You can read the full solicits here; I highly recommend imaging the characters on each solicited cover asking "Want The Dick?" on all of them, in order to better prepare yourself for seeing the books on the shelves in April.

Why are the Hawkeyes such terrible shots that they keep missing this frog? Why are they shooting arrows at that poor frog in the first place? This cover asks so many pertinent questions!

Well, I certainly didn't expect to see Belinda Carlisle's name get dropped anywhere during these solicitations.

But see Starlord, she was singing about heaven, not heven; big difference. Well, not so much in the spelling, which is only one letter different, but in the everything-else...

ANT-MAN #4
NICK SPENCER (W) • RAMON ROSANAS (a)
Cover by MARK BROOKS
WTD VARIANT COVER BY TBA
• Ant-Man has to pull off an impossible break-in, but he can’t do it alone. Which means... he’s gonna need a new gang!
• Er, of criminals. New gang of criminals. Probably should mention that part.
• This is all because of that stupid mysterious bad guy we can’t tell you about. Man, that is annoying.
• Out with it already, right? Comics.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Well, Ant-Man is being written by Nick Spencer, writer of the excellent Superior Foes of Spider-Man (among other books), so I suppose it's quite possible it could be quite good. But I'm fairly certain it won't possibly be as good as the cover above suggests. How could it be...? I just hope that, whatever happens, The Grizzly is in the comic. And he's wearing that version of his costume, the one that looks kinda like something a furry might where, and kinda like something a sports mascot might wear, only dumber and cheaper.

AVENGERS: OPERATION HYDRA #1WILL CORONA PILGRIM (W) • ANDREA DIVITO (a)Cover by MICHAEL RYANCLASSIC VARIANT BY JACK KIRBY• Before next summer’s blockbuster film, join the Avengers – Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Hulk-- as they set off on an all-new adventure against a secret Hydra splinter cell!• Black Widow’s discovered a startling development, but what exactly is Hydra up to?• It’ll take teamwork to topple Hydra’s latest plot…but only one Avenger has the skill needed to save the day!• PLUS: Reprinting Avengers #16, presenting the story that brought Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch onto the team for the first time!• PLUS PLUS: This cover will be featured as an AVENGERS COLORING POSTER.48 PGS./One-Shot /Rated T+ …$3.99

Avengers Assemble, the book Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley launched in 2012 to feature the in-Marvel Universe version of the movie Avengers, didn't last very long. They stayed on long enough to reintroduce Thanos and a slightly tweaked version of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning' Guardians of The Galaxy before that movie came out, and then split. Replaced by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Stefano Caselli, the title started out pretty okay and got bad quickly, muddying the original concept by adding in characters who weren't in the movie, and attaching completely unrelated stories to the book in at least one not-very-good annual. It lasted just 25 issues; I think they had more variant covers for the first issue then that.

Seeing this one-shot here—and a few other Avengers books featuring the movie line-up below—reminded me how strange it is that an Avengers title actually got cancelled, and that the one meant to capitalize on the movie's success didn't even last until previews for the sequel started showing up.

This issue is at Marvel's now standard $3.99 price-point—Ms. Marvel mysteriously remains the only comic not based on a cartoon that Marvel is still charging just $2.99 for—but it looks like you actually get a little more content for your money, with what I'm assuming is in the neighborhood of 30+ pages of comics (even if a portion of that is a reprint) and a coloring poster. I don't color, but I'd be less irritated to be charged that extra buck if I knew I was getting a coloring poster for my money.

AVENGERS: ULTRON FOREVER #1
AL EWING (W) • ALAN DAVIS (A/C)
AU MOVIE CONNECTING VARIANT B
AU MOVIE CONNECTING VARIANT C
YOUNG VARIANT BY SKOTTIE YOUNG
AVENGERS VARIANT COVER BY TBA
PART 1 OF 3 – THE START OF A THREE-PART AVENGERS EVENT!
• 500 years into the future, Ultron has won. Humanity is all but extinct - dead or enslaved by the Ultron Singularity.
• Now, seven Avengers are brought through time by Doctor Doom to battle the machine god for the fate of the cosmos... or die trying!
• It begins here - an epic adventure spanning the past and future of the Avengers!
40 PGS./One-Shot /Rated T+ …$4.99

BLACK WIDOW #17
NATHAN EDMONDSON (W)
PHIL NOTO (A/C)
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD!
• Natasha has been invited to see the beast from within: will she accept?
• Past and present collide as both young and current Natasha decide who controls the future.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Natasha, no! Not before Memorial Day!

Another great cover from great cover artist Michael del Mundo, this one for Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier. You know, "Bucky Barnes" doesn't sound all that cool...especially in the title of a comic book. Doesn't this follow up on Bucky's post-Original Sin status quo? Why isn't the book called The Unseen: The Winter Soldier, or The Winter Soldier: The Unseen...?

I'm not crazy about the super-busy background, and wonder if it takes away from the more homage-y aspects of the image, but regardless, that's a very strong cover by Daredevil's regular artist Chris Samnee.

Man, I miss that book...

Darth Vader vs. The "Roger Roger" droids...? That doesn't look like a very fair fight. I mean, I'm pretty sure I could take at least one of them if I had, like, a broom or something to whack it with.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: BEST STORY EVER #1
TIM SEELEY (W)
JACOPO CAMAGNI & IBAN COELLO (a)
Cover by TIM SEELEY
• It’s not every day Peter Quill ends up in jai…wait…never mind this happens a lot.
• But he DOESN’T always get Rocket stuck there with him. And he DEFINITELY doesn’t always regale the guards with the BEST STORY EVER!
• Let’s just hope he keeps their attention long enough for the other Guardians to bust him out…
32 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T…$3.99

There are nine—NINE!—Guardians of The Galaxy comics in April's solicitations (Guardians of The Galaxy, Guardians of The Galaxy and The X-Men: Black Vortex Omega #1, Guardians Team-Up, Guardians 3000, Legendary Star-Lord, Marvel Universe Guardians of The Galaxy, Rocket Raccoon and this one-shot , but, of all of 'em, this one has the best title. I'm not crazy about writer/cover artist Tim Seeley's Rocket, who looks more canine than raccoon, but then I suppose Rocket would say that's fine, as he's not a raccoon.

...

Hey, has Seeley drawn any Batman comics yet? Seeing as how he's co-writing a 52-part weekly series that has had about 40 different artists draw issues of it, I'm kind of surprised Seeley hasn't drawn any Batman Eternal yet...

JAMES PATTERSON MAX RIDE: FIRST FLIGHT #1 & 2MARGUERITE BENNETT (W)ALEX SANCHEZ (a)Cover by STEPHANIE HANSVARIANT COVER BY DUSTIN NGUYENJames Patterson’s Worldwide Bestselling Series gets a Marvel makeover. Follow the soaring adventures of Max and her extraordinary “flock”--Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman and Angel--as they try to escape their creators and defend themselves from the diabolical Erasers. Along the way Max discovers her purpose – saving the world – but can she? Find out this Spring!32 PGS. (EACH)/Rated T …$3.99 (EACH)

Is it worth noting that Marvel's doing a James Patterson comic? I know IDW has published Patterson-based comics in the past, so I was surprised to see this here.

So this Caleb/Kanan is from the TV show Rebels...? I'm pretty shaky on what's in Star Wars continuity now and what's not. In terms of the New Expanded Universe, I guess this means that the first six movies and the TV show Rebels are all in-(new)continuity...?

MOON KNIGHT #14
CULLEN BUNN (W)
RON ACKINS (a)
Cover by DECLAN SHALVEY
• A new chapter that brings the horror and insanity of MOON KNIGHT to new heights!
• Mysterious wolves are threatening the nights in New York City and it’s up to Mr. Night to figure it all out.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

And where did these mysterious wolves get all that money? Are they the wolves of Wall Street...?

Nice Jake Wyant cover for Ms. Marvel.

Have I mentioned how much I love Tradd Moore's covers for Secret Avengers, and how much I wished he was drawing the interiors as well? Oh, I have? Like every month now?

Oh.

Well, that's a pretty awesome cover. I love the little Daredevilfish and other fish dressed as Marvel heroes...

I'm not entirely sure why Marvel created this new Silk character and gave her a solo series of her own, pumping the number of ongoing solo series featuring distaff versions of Spider-Man up to three (with Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen), but I kind of like her costume. Well, most specifically, I like the torso of it, with the Superman-like "S" sigil in the middle of a Spider-Man like web. The color scheme's pretty good too. I'd hate to be working on any of those titles though, as they're going to be competing for the exact same audience, and I don't imagine there will still be three comics featuring lady versions of Spider-Man in April of 2016's solicits.
I kinda like the logo on that costume.

Darth Vader gets his gauntlets on Pym particles in April's issue of Star Wars, and the Galaxy will never be the same!

This isn't the beset example of it, as the cover has been pixilated to resemble an old videogame, but I really like the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl logo.

WOLVERINES #16
Charles Soule & Ray Fawkes (W)
Ario Anindito (a)
COVER BY Guillem March
• Mr. Sinister was robbed of his prize – the adamantium-covered body of Wolverine – when the X-Men stole it from his Finlandian fortress. But they left something behind...another piece of the puzzle, something else that was taken from our team...
• The REVENGE of Mr. Sinister starts here – and who better to initiate it than...the Paradise team?!
32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

Really? It's a Finlandian fortress? It's not a Finnish fortress? Huh. Is it in Finland, or is it in Finlandia? Is their a Finlandia in the Marvel Universe? I don't know; it's a big place.

About Me

J. Caleb Mozzocco is a freelance writer and (extremely) amateur(-ish) artist who lives and works in Ohio.
This is his blog.
You can reach him at jcalebmozzocco@gmail.com.
Creators and publishers who would like their books considered for review here and/or anywhere else he contributes can feel free to contact him at the address above.
Editors and publishers of respectable publications who would like Caleb to write about comics for them are also welcome to contact him and offer him work. He loves money.